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Sunday, March 17, 2013

Sand penalties are pretty common for most weekend players, but Stacy Lewis incurred one that most of us have never even imagined on Saturday at the Founders Cup. It's one you might want to be aware of.

To make a long story short, Stacy was penalized two strokes when her caddie Travis Wilson "tested the sand" with his feet. If you want the whole story, you can check out these two videos from GC:

And this one is the Golf Central coverage of the story. The clip starts at 12:51 of the broadcast, but the full coverage of the Founders Cup runs from around 9:00 to 15:45 and the part specifically about the penalty starts just after the 10:35 mark. This clip goes into much more detail, and shows the actual footage of the penalty. (Which is where I happened to snag this lovely photo of the infraction!)

Sometimes the Rules of Golf (yes, we must capitalize them) seem a bit ambiguous to me, especially when it comes to the subject of intent. How do you judge something as intangible as intent? It would be easier sometimes if the Rule just said "You can't do this, period."

But in this case, it's hard to argue the ruling. When the two of them are clearly discussing the depth of the sand and the caddie is apparently tapping it with his foot, the "intent" is pretty clear.

For weekend golfers I think it's important to note something Jerry Foltz says -- namely, that there's a difference between what a caddie's allowed to do and what a player's allowed to do. While the player can't test the sand, she would have learned something by merely taking her stance. The Rules do allow you to work your feet into the sand to get a good footing, and that would have given her some idea of the sand's depth while staying withing the rules.

At any rate, it's good for weekend players to realize that this is a penalty. In Stacy's case, it doubled her deficit to Ai Miyazato -- from 2 to 4 strokes -- and may have cost her the tournament.

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About Me

Author of several golf books including Ruthless Putting and Stop Coming Over-the-Top, and editor of Classic Adventure Stories: Swashbucklers, a collection of classic sword-fighting novels. I've run the Ruthless Golf blog since mid-2009. And I've also done some writing for Golfsmith.com.

I'm a writer, cartoonist, graphic artist & self-publisher who's played in some local pro golf tournaments. The challenge of learning new things really appeals to me. And I don't believe age should ever keep you from chasing your dreams.

I also write children's easy reader books under the pen name Mick Michaels, and poetry under the pen name Will Shakespeare.